FOUR ARTISTS SHORTLISTED FOR FILM LONDON JARMAN AWARD

Film London has announced a shortlist of four artist film-makers for the 2026 Jarman award, which carries a prize of £10,000 and recognises British artists producing groundbreaking work with moving images. The selected nominees are Sadia Pineda Hameed, Ilona Sagar, Rhea Storr and Alia Syed. Their work addresses subjects including carnival ritual, asbestos poisoning and kabaddi, the traditional South Asian sport.

Hameed, a Filipino Pakistani artist based in the Ebbw Valley, Wales, has created Anak Where Did We Stay?, a five-channel film combining family camcorder footage with archive material documenting Beatlemania and protests against Enoch Powell, alongside footage of aeroplane and road travel. The work explores her mother's migration from the Philippines to Britain and engages with Joshua Reynolds' 1776 painting Portrait of Omai, which depicted the first Pacific Islander to visit Britain. Syed, born in Swansea and currently working between London and Glasgow, created Snow in 2019, a video diary constructed from footage originally shot by her father during winter 1995–96, a period when they were not on speaking terms. Storr's 2025 film New Territories (Spectacle Is King) documents summer carnivals across the UK, employing silence to emphasise the contrast between vibrant costumes—including dancers in blue facepaint and outfits incorporating stilts—and the mundane British high streets they parade through.

The jury selected this streamlined shortlist to highlight artists bringing deeply grounded lived experience to stories of migration, family and disaster. The award recognises how these film-makers have looked to the past to create visions of the future.